Chapter 6: Eighth Level of Spiritual Warrior

The Red-Eyed Eagle beat its wings with all its strength, forcing some distance between itself and Archie Cutmore. It wheeled around in midair, locked onto him, and slashed down with razor talons, carving a crimson claw-mark through the air! "Innate combat skill, Red Blood Claw." Archie's brows lifted a fraction. Demon beasts did not rely on brute force alone. They could use martial skills as well. The difference was that their skills were born with them, known as innate combat skills. Most ordinary demon beasts only possessed a single innate combat skill. Those with terrifying strength and powerful bloodlines, however, could have several. That crimson claw-mark the Red-Eyed Eagle had unleashed was its innate combat skill, Red Blood Claw. Its power was anything but weak, enough to cripple an ordinary late-stage Sixth Level of Spiritual Warrior cultivator. Unfortunately for it, its opponent was Archie Cutmore. Archie's cultivation was only at the late stage of the Sixth Level of Spiritual Warrior, but his combat strength did not fall short of a Seventh Level of Spiritual Warrior cultivator. "Fire Cloud Palm!" Archie roared. His right hand snapped into a palm strike. Terrifying spiritual energy erupted from his palm, ripping the air with a shrill sonic boom as he slammed it toward the incoming crimson claw-mark! "Boom!" The two collided midair with a heavy, muffled impact. The razor-sharp crimson claw-mark did not last even a second before it shattered. Archie's palm strike did not slow. It tore straight through the broken attack and crashed down on the Red-Eyed Eagle's right wing. The Red-Eyed Eagle's pupils shrank. It clearly had not expected its innate combat skill to be so laughably fragile in front of Archie. Before it could even react, Archie's palm landed. "Screee!" The Red-Eyed Eagle let out another agonized cry. A closer look showed its right wing had snapped, jagged white bone exposed. Blood dripped steadily from the wound, splattering into small crimson blossoms on the ground. That single strike had heavily wounded it. After two exchanges, the Red-Eyed Eagle understood it was no match for Archie. It did not hesitate. It turned and fled. But with its right wing broken and its left wing already injured by Archie, it could not fly fast at all. It had not even made it five meters before Archie, using Swimming Steps, caught up. "It's over!" Archie surged up behind it. He stomped hard, sprang into the air, and unleashed Fire Cloud Palm again! Terrifying spiritual energy gathered in his palm and slammed into the Red-Eyed Eagle's back with full force. The Red-Eyed Eagle dropped like a kite with its string cut, smashing into the ground and kicking up a skyful of dust. When the dust settled, it lay in a pool of blood, already dead. With a thought, Archie stored the Red-Eyed Eagle's corpse into the first-floor space of the pagoda. Every part of a demon beast was valuable. The Demon Core and its natal essence blood could be used as medicinal ingredients to refine pills. Its bones could be used as spiritual materials to forge Spiritual Artifact. That was why some cultivators made their living by hunting demon beasts. "The pagoda space can be used for cultivation and for growing herbs, and it can store things too. From now on, I won't need to waste money on high-grade storage Spiritual Artifact." A faint smile tugged at Archie's lips. The internal space of a storage bag was only a few cubic meters to a few dozen. Above storage bags were higher-grade storage Spiritual Artifact: Storage Pendant, storage bracelets, storage rings, and more. Any high-grade storage Spiritual Artifact was worth a fortune. Santiago Cutmore, as the head of the Cutmore family side branch in Quirby, only had a single Storage Pendant, and even that held merely a little over a hundred cubic meters. Yet the first-floor space of the Chaos Pagoda was a thousand times, ten thousand times larger. Even the highest-grade storage ring could not compare to the first floor of the Chaos Pagoda. And the Chaos Pagoda did not stop at one floor. It had eight more. After dealing with the Red-Eyed Eagle, Archie turned and went deeper into the valley. He dug up three Crimson Fruit trees by the roots, then with a thought entered the first-floor space of the pagoda and planted them in the fields. "Give it a year or so, and the Crimson Fruit will be ripe," Archie murmured. Once everything was done, he left the first-floor space of the pagoda and continued deeper into the Quirby Range. A day passed in the blink of an eye. In that single day, Archie ran into three mid-tier First Rank demon beasts and seven low-tier First Rank demon beasts. After dealing with them all, he had gathered enough medicinal herbs. "Objective complete. Time to cultivate." With a thought, Archie entered the first-floor space of the pagoda and began cultivating. Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the Quirby Range, Fabian Cutmore searched with killing intent rolling off him in waves, doing everything he could to find Archie's trail. No matter how he searched, he found nothing... In the blink of an eye, three days passed. Over those three days, Fabian turned the entire outer region of the Quirby Range upside down. He found several places that seemed like Archie might have passed through, yet he still could not find him. "Did Archie Cutmore enter the inner region of the Quirby Range?" Fabian frowned deeply. The Quirby Range sprawled across a vast area, divided into an inner region and an outer region. The outer region was home to weaker demon beasts, mostly low-tier and mid-tier First Rank. The inner region, however, housed high-tier First Rank demon beasts, as well as powerful Second Rank demon beasts! With Archie's late-stage Sixth Level of Spiritual Warrior cultivation, entering the inner region was no different from seeking death. But the outer region held no trace of him. Fabian thought for a moment, then ultimately decided to enter the inner region and continue the search. What he did not know was that even if he flipped the inner region inside out, he still would not find Archie... Three days passed in the outside world. Inside the first-floor space of the Chaos Pagoda, ten months had already gone by. With the help of that bottle of Energy Nurturing Pill, Archie's cultivation broke through to the early stage of the Eighth Level of Spiritual Warrior. "The medicinal strength of the Energy Nurturing Pill is several times that of basic herbs. It's a shame I only got one bottle from Timothy Cutmore. If I'd had a few more, I'd be at least at the late stage of the Eighth Level of Spiritual Warrior by this point, maybe even the Ninth Level of Spiritual Warrior," Archie muttered. The Energy Nurturing Pill he had taken from Timothy Cutmore had long since been used up. Fortunately, after ten months of waiting, the herbs he had planted in the fields had all matured. Archie could begin training in Basics of Alchemy. As long as he became a mid-tier Rank 1 alchemist, he would be able to refine Energy Nurturing Pill himself. Archie took out Basics of Alchemy and read through it once. Then, following the methods described in the book, he began to practice. His hands formed one profound seal after another, guiding the spiritual energy within his body. "Pill Fire, rise!" Condensing Pill Fire was the most basic step to becoming an alchemist. Ordinary people needed several days to condense Pill Fire. Some alchemical geniuses could do it within a single day. Archie, whose bloodline had been forcibly extracted, clearly did not belong to that category. He practiced the method for condensing Pill Fire for an entire day. Forget Pill Fire, he could not even coax out a single wisp of flame. Archie had expected as much, and he did not grow discouraged. In the pagoda space, time was the one thing he never lacked.